1. Technical Field
The subject invention relates to office furniture having a polygonal base and a storage area fixedly secured thereto. More particularly, the subject invention relates to the base configuration and the method of fabricating same from a single metallic tube in a manner which decreases the post-fabrication finishing times.
2. Description of Related Art
Makers of metallic furniture for offices have assembly problems when producing the base portion of the furniture. Each base, typically rectangular, comprises four individual pieces of metal which must be welded at each corner and then ground smooth. This process is labor and time intensive and, therefore, costly. Additionally, the time needed to dry the base after the washing and painting steps of production is extensive.
Another problem related to the current method of producing a base in this fashion is the inventory which must be kept to produce bases. Each type of base produced has two different sizes of tube that must be kept in stock. This can be costly because money and valuable storage space are needed to keep the inventory at the proper levels.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,097,684 to Le Tarte, issued Jul. 16, 1963 discloses a method of forming a closed corner in a hollow rectangular metal work piece. More particularly, this patent discloses a method of operating a pair of saws relative to each other used to cut a portion of metal out of a rectangular tube. This patent does not, however, disclose a method for forming a polygonal base out of one piece of rectangular tubing which also reduces the time it takes to dry the base after post-fabrication operations, i.e., washing and painting the base.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,073,177 to Leroux, issued Feb. 14, 1978 discloses a method for bending a thick metallic elongated part having a profile resembling one of the letters U, V, or W. More particularly, this patent discloses a process of cutting a thick metallic part by cutting the metallic part in two places, each cut is cut at an angle wherein the sum of the angles equals the angle desired for the bend of the elongated part. The elongated part is also cut in a direction parallel to the longitudinal axis of the elongated part between the innermost points of the two angled cuts. This allows the elongated part to be bent at the desired angle without accumulating excess material at the newly formed corner. Again, this method is deficient because it does not disclose any steps taken to increase the speed in which these newly formed frames dry from post-fabrication operation.